Bain-backed chipmaker Kioxia’s shares rise in market debut By Reuters

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Kioxia shares rose 3% in their market debut on Wednesday, valuing the Bain-backed chipmaker at 807 billion yen ($5.25 billion).

Memory chipmaker Kioxia raised 120 billion yen after pricing its IPO in the middle of an indicative range of 1,455 yen per share.

Kioxia, formerly known as Toshiba (OTC:) Memory, was bought from Toshiba by a Bain-led consortium in 2018 after a long and contentious battle.Toshiba put the business up for sale after plunged into crisis over rising costs in its nuclear business.

The road to the IPO has been a rocky one for Kioxia, whose name is a combination of the Japanese word kioku, meaning “memory,” and the Greek word “axia,” meaning “value.”

The Bain consortium’s deal to acquire Kioxia, then seen as an expensive asset, was a significant intervention by private equity in Japan.

Uncertainty has continued since the sale, with Bain delaying IPO plans two years later amid uncertainty in the global chip market stemming from US-China tensions.

An attempt to merge Kioxia with a partner Western Digital (NASDAQ: ), which initially opposed selling to the consortium, stalled over objections from the Japanese company’s investor, SK Hynix.

Bain Capital scrapped Kioxia’s IPO plans in October after investors forced the buyout firm to nearly halve the 1.5 trillion yen valuation it was seeking, Reuters reported.

($1 = 153.6800 yen)